By Debbie Running
I’m reflecting back on my experience in the Black Lives Matter protest on June 3rd, 2020, the first year of COVID-19. Not just the experience but the things that led me to participate.
I can’t forget watching George Floyd die at the hands of 4 Minnesota policemen. Men who swore to uphold the law and protect all citizens. There was no protection of citizens going on, most especially George Floyd. There was no upholding the law going on. Seeing that officer with his knee on George Floyd’s neck with his hand in his pocket as onlookers urged him to let Mr. Floyd up…. The look on his face said it all to me. It was a look of defiance. It was almost as if he were daring someone to “make him” let Mr. Floyd up. It was the look of the bully in the school yard at recess.
Let me be clear here as well, that I’m not a black man but I have been afraid of the police for years now. I know most of the police are brave, good men who have the best of intentions but all you have to do is run into one of the bullies who are also numerous, and you can end up arrested and worse, dead. And shamefully, those bullies are protected by their fellow officers who should speak out but are silent.
And no one suffers from this more than young black men. It must stop.
I can’t forget watching peaceful protests being used by opportunistic criminals and looters and infiltrated by various groups with bad intentions, setting fires. Meanwhile police were busy arresting protesters for breaking curfew while the looters and criminals operated unchecked.
You must question priorities and whether it was deliberate or incompetence. That I must even wonder about this, shows the systemic distrust. It must stop.
Then I watched as peaceful protesters were driven out by our military at the orders of the president of the United States, so he could have a photo op. People were tear gassed and rubber bullets were fired. People were shoved and hit with batons. Their First Amendment rights trampled by the people who were supposed to serve and protect them. It must stop.
Others have written about these things more eloquently than I can. But here is where it becomes different for me.
I am Native American and I know history which includes the deliberate actions taken by the United States Government to exterminate or assimilate my people. I have seen what is possible. I have seen people look away and people denigrate a race of people by taking away their livelihood and way of life and then labeling them with derogatory words because they had no hope.
That continues today and I hope someday that will stop. But we will need support. Right now, is not our day but others need our support. We can give that. I can give that.
For my mother, who had stones thrown at her as she walked home from school because she was Indian. For my uncles, who were the first suspects when there was any trouble because they were Indians and who were never guilty. For my grandmother, who was taken from her family and put in a boarding school where they tried to make her reject her identity because she was Indian, I must protest when I see similar harm done to others. I will not be silent.
Leading up to this local protest, the community was in a panic even though it was to be a peaceful, daytime protest. “Clermont braces for protests.” As if there is some inherent danger in a protest. Now I am aware that nighttime protests in big cities can have violence and property damage and theft. But daytime protests have been largely peaceful. So why such fear and what does it mean?
My neighbors were afraid. They urged people to stay home. We activated the largely useless entrance gates and closed the back gate to all but residents. We acted like we were under siege. Why?
I asked myself whether they would have reacted the same way if it was a protest against animal cruelty, for example. And I think the answer is, no.
They were afraid of ANTIFA. It became clear that they don’t even know what ANTIFA is but they clearly associate it with being a violent, black organization who might spread through the community wreaking destruction and attacking innocent people. They were worried that the Black Lives Matter organization would bus in criminals and troublemakers from Orlando who would wreak destruction and attack innocent people.
It pains me to say this, but this is part of the problem. This is racism.
And furthermore, exhorting people to stay home and stay “safe” and being so afraid of participating in a protest for equal human rights, is basically giving up their First Amendment rights voluntarily. They would willingly give up liberty for safety, something our founding fathers and mothers, and early American forebearers would never do or never understand. Nor do I.
So, I also protested for First Amendment Rights. I protested to uphold the principles upon which our country was born.
When I was asked to provide a sentence or two of why I was there, I had to think about it and it was more than a sentence or two.
